Shreveport Meets Sarajevo at Julie Anne’s Bakery

Julie Anne’s Bakery, a charming little bakery and cafe located at 825 Kings Highway in Shreveport, could be described as “thoroughly Shreveport-Bossier, Louisiana.” The bakery does a swift, year-round business in king cakes and other seasonal pies and cakes. As noon approaches, the dining room fills with well-to-do ladies meeting for lunch and gossip.

In other words, Julie Anne’s Bakery may be the last place on Earth that you’d expect to find Ćevapčići, a pita-style sandwich that originated in the Balkans and is eaten so frequently in Serbia and Bosnia that it is considered a national dish. As unlikely as it seems, there’s the Ćevapčići ($8.50 or $11.25), listed on the Julie Anne’s lunch menu between the BLT and the hamburger. I asked Julie Anne’s owner Renato Majstorovic, who grew up in Sarajevo, if the sandwich made it onto their menu because it holds sentimental value for him. “Absolutely,” Majstorovic said. “This is what I grew up eating as a child.” Majstorovic believes that his is the only Ćevapčići currently being served in the entire state of Louisiana.

How does the sandwich itself measure up? Let’s just say, it beats the heck out of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I grew up eating. The sandwich consists of homemade beef sausages and grilled minced onions stuffed into a hot, buttery pita-style bread called Lepina (also known simply as “Bosnian bread”). The sandwich is served with tomato slices, lettuce and, most importantly, a mixture of feta cheese, sour cream and cream cheese.

My friend Michael Lott, who tipped me off to the existence of Ćevapčići, texted me a tip: “Put the sour cream they give you all over it.” It’s sound advice.